Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!

Mordred observed the procession of the King and the knights. Realizing that she had been reborn in the age of King Arthur had been a shock, but the moment her mother told her that the king was her father, alarm bells began ringing to the point it was impossible to ignore. Not that she would have...it was those same instincts that kept her alive until that debacle with a summoning ritual that went horribly, horribly wrong.

She really shouldn't have tried to use the time turner in a last ditch effort to escape. Especially on a Halloween.

Until this point she had tried to pretend that her name wasn't a big clue as to how badly she had fucked up. Perhaps Mordred was a common name back then...it wasn't like there was a proper census or record from this time period.

Naturally she had to ask Morgana how she knew the king was her biological father, if only to keep up the willful denial she had until that point.

Gods, how she would later wish she had never asked.

Morgana was less than amused that her child had been less than receptive for her plans for them, and told them everything. Everything, down to the details that she didn't ask for and absolutely didn't want to know.

Learning that the story of Merlin giving the king a functional piece of 'equipment' which most had dismissed as a joke was actually true, and that her mother had hypnotized her own sibling during that critical time period to force herself on them was absolutely horrifying in a way that words could never adequately express.

At this point she was little more than a squire, and the knight she served was not amused in the least when she came in so plastered that one could easily smell the fermented liquid on her breath. It was that strong.

Honestly, the amount of boring, tedious chores the older knight put her through was still lesser in comparison to learning the full truth of her conception. It was bad enough finding out that you were the product of incest...learning that you were also the product of what was essentially rape of someone who was suffering from a rather awkward prank was a low she never would have considered funny.

Don't get her wrong, with her Marauder heritage she could appreciate a good prank. But what Morgana did insured that she would never fully trust her 'mother' or her requests at face value ever again. Sirius tricking Snape into running into a transformed Remus was bad...but what Morgana did to Arturia was far worse.

Mordred thought back on what she knew of her particular history. Most of the wizarding world focused more on Merlin and Morgana, with the odd tidbit thrown towards the Knights of the Round and their king.

She knew that Mordred would successfully pass the knight trials and become a full member of the Round Table. That she would faithfully serve the King until that fateful turning point when Lancelot fell for the king's wife and things began to fall apart.

How everything went to hell permanently on the fields of Camlann, with the king and his 'son' mortally wounding each other on the fields of battle.

This...was bad. Ridiculously bad.

She could care less about becoming king... in her past life she had firm sense of wanderlust and learning everything she could about the world. She didn't want to get trapped in this sort of mess!

However at the same time she knew that certain points in history were fixed, and the battle of Camlann was a major one. Arthur and Mordred had to meet in the battlefield and she had to mortally wound the king.

Once the hangover was over with and her 'mother' ignoring her for the most part since Mordred really did want to become a proper knight, she began to think.

Avoiding the battle entirely was not an option. Nor was avoiding Camelot...Morgana would never let her escape that.

But...nothing said that she had to announce herself as Mordred Pendragon. Becoming a knight without a surname was unusual, and frowned upon...but there was nothing to stop her from just going by her given name. And she had become an expert in misdirecting people when asked about who she was in her last life that it was almost second nature.

The second she was knighted, she would begin the slow process of going no-contact with an rather infamous Magus.

Until that point she would have to secretly study everything Morgana had, because in spite of her absolute disgust of learning of her origins, she was not a complete fool. Morgana was a powerful and terrifying Magus in her own right, on part with Merlin. If she wanted to insure she didn't fall for any traps, she'd have to study.

It was a good thing she was so used to operating on next to no sleep.

Merlin sensed the presence of a powerful mage, and while he normally didn't bother attending the knighting ceremony, every instinct he had insisted he needed to attend this one. It wasn't the presence of Morgana, who was hiding in the shadows with an oddly smug look on her face as she observed the smaller squire being promoted to full knight by the king himself.

No, it was the newly fledged knight that had his full attention.

The child could hide behind the odd spell that was somehow obscuring their identity without anyone really paying attention all they liked...Merlin could sense the magic lazily curling around their veins.

This wasn't some half-trained wixen child...this was someone who was fully trained in the magical arts. And... for reasons he had yet to understand, had undergone the rigorous and exhausting trials to become a knight, when using magic was frowned upon.

Merlin turned his attention to Morgana as the knight stood. She was frowning slightly, almost annoyed at something. She was also staring intently at the wixen knight like they had done something to irk her in some way.

"Arise, Sir Mordred," said the king.

Mordred rose, and Merlin observed the spell over their face a bit.

It was a clever piece of spellwork, full of subtle nuances that allowed it to pass almost unnoticed if you weren't looking for it. However once you knew what to look for, it was ridiculously easy to look past the spell to see the true nature behind it.

Ah. Now Merlin understood Morgana's annoyance with the child. The teen had somehow managed to obscure their facial features enough that no one noticed Mordred looked almost identical to the king, signifying a very close familial relation.

From the look Morgana was giving the teen, it was likely she wanted to spring the fact Mordred was related to Arturia in a way to challenge for the throne in some manner.

Considering the spellwork around the teen was not Morgana's handiwork, it was likely the knight disagreed with the idea. And, now that he thought about it, the squire had only used his given name rather than his full name when being knighted. Which was highly unusual, in that most knights were of noble blood, and would use their surname when being knighted by the king.

Merlin managed to obscure himself long enough to overhear the conversation between the wixen knight and Morgana. He had to use a bit of magic to do it, but the talk proved highly...enlightening.

"Really Mordred, must you be so difficult! You are his son by blood!"

Mordred sighed in annoyance.

"Mother, just because you used the fact Merlin gave the king the ability to sire an heir with their wife despite the obvious handicap does not mean I care for the constant reminder of my birth. It's bad enough you slept with your own sibling just to take the throne," deadpanned Mordred.

Merlin nearly dropped his spell with alarm hearing that tidbit.

"Mordred, don't you take that tone with me. The throne is your birthright," said Morgana, clearly pissed.

"Not all puppets agree to their strings," Mordred shot back. "Now if you'll excuse me, I plan to go and drown the reminder you've given me about how I was conceived."

Arturia was somewhat annoyed that one of her new knights was apparently a functioning alcoholic. Considering the conversation he overheard, Merlin couldn't exactly blame the child...particularly with with Mordred all but implied about their origin.

A few months later...

It took all of three months for Mordred to stop being enamored with being a knight. Mostly because since she wasn't part of the Round, she and her other former squires got stuck doing the boring crap. Which...was to be expected but did not make it suck any less. Her mother kept hinting that perhaps Arthur would behave differently if he knew Mordred was his son and heir, but Mordred honestly did not want that.

Mostly because she knew the legends, even peripherally and how Arthur had utterly rejected Mordred when they found out the truth about their parentage.

And honestly, she could hardly blame them. Finding out that your half-sister had essentially forced themselves on you to take the throne would turn anyone save for the most desperate off.

So Mordred kept it up without much complaint. After all, the other knights had been with the king longer and had earned a bit of leeway.

Finally, she obtained an interesting mission.

"So you want me to deal with a witch who's been causing trouble for the local populace?" said Mordred. Her face was once again obscured with the helmet that her mother insisted she wear since she was so determined to hide her identity.

"I would send Merlin, but he said he had a new project to work on. And the others are off on different quests," said Arthur.

Which left Mordred, one of the youngest knights of the realm. Arthur had been taken aback when they mentioned their age, but had acknowledged Mordred's skill as more than acceptable to be worthy of knighthood.

When Mordred reached the village, she wanted to sigh in exasperation.

It took her all of five minutes upon getting off the horse to smell the familiar odor in the air that she had long since connected to a headache in her future.

An hour later, she immediately realized that most of the villagers were either dead, enslaved or were travelers who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the worst possible time and would be lucky to survive the knight.

This shit was why she didn't bother to ride in with full knight armor. Not only was it bulky and incredibly hard to move in some days, but revealing your status as a noble made it much harder to find out the truth.

She took her time, gathered up all those still alive and not enslaved, and made sure to put them into a protective barrier inside the church, which was one of the few buildings that had decently sturdy walls and was easily defended. That and most of the peasants would likely feel more comfortable hiding there than anywhere else.

The witch, if there was one, clearly sensed something was off.

Mordred didn't have to wait long at all. A knight in full armor (her horse was already hidden well outside town) with weapon was a pretty damn good provocation, and the culprit would have figured out something was up with the sheer number of people going missing in less than a few hours.

The sound of unholy creatures being unleashed was enough to terrifying even the most pious soul. Mordred could hear the peasants crying out in shock and horror before promptly slamming the windows shut and doing their best to barricade the doors.

The next several hours were a blur, as she went through every single house in the village (there weren't many, but the armor along weighed at least fifty pounds and was slowing her down) before finally using the magic trail to track down the Magus responsible.

All Mordred found was a corpse as their heart had given out trying to control that many undead as well as the enslaved. It was small mercy that there were no children among either party...but then again any local child would have likely figured out something was wrong and gotten the hell out of dodge before they were next, or were quietly 'disappeared' long before Mordred even showed up.

Mordred waited until morning once she was very sure there weren't any...remnants...before she opened up the church. She had already disposed of the research, and kept what little looked worth saving.

She was bloodied, tired, and really, really wanted a hot bath. She hated dealing with Dead Apostles.

When she returned to Camelot, having finally washed off the worst of the muck and unspeakable crap off her body, the first thing she did was ward her room and crash hard.

The King could bloody well wait until morning, dammit. She had earned her break!